A pair of recent articles in the New York Times and Music Business Worldwide focus on the story of Perrin Lamb, a part-time singer-songwriter from Nashville. Mr. Perrin was an unknown, unsigned artist before landing on a popular playlist on Spotify.

It was a busy weekend. Yesterday, a Taylor Swift Tumblr post explained why she will withhold her 1989 album from the new Apple Music service. A few hours later Apple changed course, decided to incur higher operating costs in perpetuity and is back in Swift’s good graces. Everybody wins? Not likely.

Given Ms. Swift’s very public disagreement about royalties and other articles about small checks that some artists receive, many are left with the impression that music streaming services are unfairly benefiting from musicians’ work. Industry data emerged last week suggesting record labels are the real beneficiaries.